He wasn't an idiot. He was brilliant at maths and at languages. He moved to Switzerland early on in his education and he was valued greatly by his teacher there. He had great grades at the Abitur (German high school) which you can Google. He was also incredibly intelligent at university. He had problems with one of his maths professors for being Jewish, as well as contradicting what the professor said sometimes, but he was a genius all through. I think he was bad at French and something else at school, but overall he was a pretty decent student until uni when his genius began to show.

(Original post by oShahpo)
He wasn't an idiot. He was brilliant at maths and at languages. He moved to Switzerland early on in his education and he was valued greatly by his teacher there. He had great grades at the Abitur (German high school) which you can Google. He was also incredibly intelligent at university. He had problems with one of his maths professors for being Jewish, as well as contradicting what the professor said sometimes, but he was a genius all through. I think he was bad at French and something else at school, but overall he was a pretty decent student until uni when his genius began to show.

I checked his grades. He got 6's in Algebra, Physics and Geometry, but was 6 the highest possible grade?

(Original post by Quantex)
There are various urban myths that he was a failure at school, seen as stupid, etc. I swear they only exist to reassure the thick kids that can barely bang two rocks together that they have a future.

I wasn't dumb at school but I never got high grades. Now I do have a good academic future. I am no way closer to Einstein but not all successful were savants aged 10.

Hard experience told me that success - or even acceptance - at school is determined whether or not you fit through a narrow and artificially defined window. Most teachers have a mindset geared around average middle of the road children.

There have been plenty of cases where children were total failures at school but then went on to achieve high grades at GCSE and A Levels after they became home educated.

(Original post by rod gorry)
When you look at Einstein's work, what did he actually come up with? Sure he disproved Newtons laws and came up with another questionable answer,

Not sure if srs...

Brownian movement, or the zigzag motion of microscopic particles in suspension. Einstein's findings helped to prove the existence of atoms and molecules.

The quantum theory of light. Einstein proposed that light is composed of separate packets of energy, called quanta or photons, that have some properties of particles and some properties of waves. He also explained the photoelectric effect, which is the emission of electrons from some solids when they're struck by light. Television is a practical application of Einstein's theory of light.

The special theory of relativity. Einstein explained that time and motion are relative to their observers, as long as the speed of light remains constant and natural laws are the same throughout the universe.

The link between mass and energy. The fourth paper expanded on this idea with the famous equation E = mc^2, relating mass and energy. This formula demonstrates that a small particle of matter contains an enormous amount of energy. This forms much of the basis for nuclear energy.